Much Madness is Divinest Sense
by March Hare
Summary: A strange patient with an outrageous claim is committed to St. Jude's Sanitarium. Could his claims possibly be true, or is he truly insane??


Hey all! This is the Mad March Hare with some fresh material for you! Now before you start screaming at me, I want you to know that I fully intend to continue working in "The Baker Street Three," unless of course, you ask me to stop. (Judging from my reviews, that won't happen anytime soon! You guys are so nice to me!) This is just a crazy little idea that popped into my head around midnight the other night. Now you know what you get when you cross rabid Sherlockania, a late-night reading of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and FAR too much caffeine. Please, don't let this happen to you.  
  
Anyway, I had just finished "Cuckoo's Nest," (Damn depressing, too, let me tell ya) and that got me pondering. In any time travel story, regardless of character or time period, the time traveler always meets the helpful secondary character who dispenses the First Rule of Time Travel, which usually runs thusly: "You can't act like that; people will think you're NUTS!" So, I pondered, what if a time traveler DIDN'T meet the helpful secondary character? What if everyone DID think that the person in question was almighty crackers? What if that person got committed in a very familiar asylum? That's right, folks, blatant Cuckoo crossover with a few charas of my own thrown in for good measure. I'm too lazy to go around changing the names.  
  
I just hacked out this chapter for fun, so feedback is especially important. I don't think anyone has tried this particular idea before, could be wrong, but you never know. So, if you hate the idea and think I should get back to busting myself on The Baker Street Three, push the little review button and tell me so. If you think that, pardon the pun, this idea may be crazy enough to work, tell me that too. Either way it runs, I hope you enjoy!  
  
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Much Madness is Divinest Sense by March Hare, the Mad  
  
Chapter One  
  
Admissions  
  
"Watson, would you be afraid to sleep in the same room as a madman?"  
  
-Sherlock Holmes, The Valley of Fear  
  
They were all insane, they supposed. That was why they were sitting in the day-room of St. Jude's Sanitarium for the Mentally Unbalanced playing cards, listening to the mumble of the Chronics and the drone of the unending Muzak. Instead of climbing into immaculately clean blue Ford sedans and driving to mundane nine-to-five desk jobs wearing three-piece suits, they were crowded around card tables with poker hands, Monopoly boards and jigsaw puzzles going full-blast. Patients in lettuce-leaf green scrubs scattered across the white linoleum tiles, leaning and smoking against whitewashed walls, steadfastly avoiding the gaze of the orderlies and nurses in their starched white uniforms, especially one starched white uniform worn by a tiny doll-faced woman, sitting impassively being a sheet of plate glass in the fortress of the Nurse's Office. It was the Year of Our Lord 1962, September the tenth of that year, a fine year to be insane in, can you dig it?  
  
Apparently they could, for they all did as best they humanly could, hunched over their games and passing time in their sterile, whitewashed world.  
  
"I have a house there; you have to pay me," demanded a little man with a sweet child-smile, pointing to a spot on the Monopoly board.  
  
"Dammit, Martini, that's a railroad. You can't put houses on a railroad," growled Sefelt, pushing the tiny green block off the board. Martini simply replaced the house, smile never leaving his face. "Martini, you can't do that! That railroad isn't even yours!"  
  
"Yeah, it's not even yours!" echoed Cheswick, the bespectacled man shaking a pitiful fist at his oblivious fellow loony.  
  
"Martini, what's that under the table?" asked a handsome man with a somewhat nervous expression. Martini followed the man's pointed finger and went off to happily inspect the empty underside of the table. "Divide the absentee's money, fellows," said Harding, lighting another cigarette. "I believe it's Billy's turn."  
  
Martini's forgotten spoils thus plundered and divided among the remaining players, Billy Bibbit took the dice in hand and began to shake when a key was heard to turn in the day-room door. All motion in the room ceased as all of the Acutes and some of the Chronics turned to anxiously peer at the door, locked throughout the day except when admitting visitors and students. The medical students and psychology majors had come and gone for the day, taking their legal-sized notepads and embarrassing questions with them. There were no tours or visitors on the schedule. This instance of the door opening must be momentous news indeed.  
  
Two men entered, one in the police blues of the Armed Escort. "Admission, come sign for him!" he bellowed impatiently, holding out his clipboard to a starched nurse. An Admission. A new loony. There hadn't been one of those since Eisenhower was last elected, the patients thought, at least those still capable of thought. Momentous news indeed.  
  
The other man, presumably the Admission, was not the average run-of-the- mill loony, standing quietly frightened, waiting for the nurses to physically lead him into the day-room. This stranger was attired in an old- fashioned suit that was severely rumpled, as if he had been sleeping in it for a couple of days. His expression was vaguely reminiscent of a car crash victim trying to regain his composure as the police fired questions at him. The man coldly examined the room and its contents, the hint of a sneer curling his lip as he took in the Chronics and Vegetables on the far end of the room. His unfathomable gaze lingered with hesitation on the tiny black-and-white television and the control panel in the Nurses' Office, but for no longer than a moment.  
  
Abruptly turning on heel, the stranger left his escort and paced the length of the room, eyes flickering constantly. After a cursory glance at the assembled Acutes, the man sat in a chair in the corner, drew his knees up to his chest and commenced staring through the barred windows.  
  
The stranger was exceedingly tall and thin, retaining the preoccupied, slightly bewildered expression on his pale features. The Acutes regarded the silent man for some time, holding a whispered conversation.  
  
"G-go on, H-H-Harding. See wh-wh-who he i-i-is," quavered the stammering Billy.  
  
"Yeah, go see who he is," chimed Cheswick.  
  
"Now, we may be acting presumptuously," demurred Harding in his cultured college voice, drawing deeply on the cigarette. "Perhaps we should wait for him to instigate conversation."  
  
"Come on, Harding," protested Sefelt. "After all, as president of the Patient's Council, it's practically your job to welcome the new Admissions."  
  
"That is news to me," grumbled Harding, but he snuffed his cigarette and pushed back his chair all the same, curiosity impossible to deny. Walking over and standing near to the new man, he cleared his throat. "It would seem that you shall be staying with us for a while," he began awkwardly.  
  
The man shifted his gray gaze from the window to Harding. "I do not belong here," he stated with a rather clipped accent. "I am not insane. This treatment is entirely unnecessary and outside of their jurisdiction."  
  
"Oh?" said Harding with interest. Perhaps this newcomer would make for intelligent conversation. "Then how did you come to grace our humble presence, my rational compatriot?"  
  
"I am not entirely sure," clipped the man bitterly. The accent was definitely English, or a very good facsimile. "I have repeatedly tried to piece together the sequence of event, but there is very little data for me to work with. My last concrete piece of data is that there was a terrible incident at the Science Exposition that I was attending in the BM, after which I quite suddenly found myself in this strange land. From various passersby, I attempted to learn where I was and obtain aid of some kind, but the listener to my tale always dissolved into paroxysms of laughter or gasps of disbelief. After a great many arguments and protestations, I was arrested by the local constabulary and brought to this asylum, still not knowing what has become of me."  
  
Well, educated or not, this man was probably farther gone than Harding had originally credited him for. "That is quite a story, Mr. . ." Harding trailed off in prompt.  
  
Guarded doubt grew on the man's face. "I would prefer not to give my name, sir, since that is what had caused the outbreaks of laughter and skepticism."  
  
"Your name?" Harding was rather perplexed, but the stranger was not forthcoming with further details. "Why, what's in a name, quoth the Bard of centuries gone? My own is Dale Harding, and I have yet to hear a chuckle over it. Surely yours cannot be that extraordinary." He stuck out his hand. "Now that you know my moniker, you might as well tell me yours so that we can shake hands like sane individuals." Try as he might, he could not escape the wry twist on the word "sane."  
  
The wordplay was not lost upon the stranger and a gleam rose in his gray eyes. "Very well," said he, pivoting in his chair and grasping Harding's hand. "I would say it is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Harding, but I believe that honesty is always the best policy. My name is Sherlock Holmes."  
  
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Dun dun DUN!!! As if we all didn't see that one coming. Yes, I know it's short, but it's two in the morning and I'm wiped, so further chapters depend solely on number of reviews. By the by, "BM" is a common slang abbreviation for the British Museum. What were YOU thinking?  
  
How will the patients react to our hero? What about the nurses? Is he really who he claims to be, or just another loony? Am I wasting my time? Only one way to find out. REVIEW! 


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